Men Fear to Tread
by Roseveare
Summary: Avon and Tarrant don't want to set foot on Navaru. Soolin and Dayna are happy to let them sit this one out. Soolin/Dayna.


TITLE: Men Fear to Tread...  
AUTHOR: roseveare  
RATING: mild R/mature  
LENGTH: 7,700 words  
SUMMARY: Avon and Tarrant don't want to set foot on Navaru. Soolin and Dayna are happy to let them sit this one out.  
NOTES: Written for Tish as part of the Everywoman fic exchange.  
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda, yadda, yadda.

* * *

 **Men Fear to Tread...**

"So the women take female lovers and the men are regarded like stud horses?" Dayna said, hearing the amusement drip from her voice. "No wonder Avon and Tarrant were so keen to avoid coming down to this planet... We might have bartered them as breeding stock."

"I will be forever _inconsolable_ that Avon and Tarrant opted to avoid this planet," Soolin said dryly.

"I could just see Tarrant in one of those little genital pouches and nothing else," Dayna said, gesturing subtly at one example being led past them, the laughter bubbling over in her voice.

Soolin gave her a sidelong glance and a tight smile and was silent, on that issue.

Navaru's unconventional customs aside, their mission planetside was straightforward. Avon had written some computer code in exchange for a data crystal containing maps and schematics for a nearby Federation outpost. All they needed to do was find Avon's contact and make the exchange. The contact's name was Asha.

The population of Navaru usually lived in great cave cities in the cliffs, where off-worlders were not permitted, but their trade market was a regularly held five day long affair conducted in the open air, and off-worlders were not only permitted but encouraged to attend. Much of the market seemed dedicated to the trade of men, which amused Dayna almost as much as it made Soolin roll her eyes. Soolin was far more cynical and less sympathetic to the cruelties of the big, wide galaxy than Dayna was, but she disliked human trade. Even if the men looked smug, well-fed and aggressively pushy to promote their superiority to stud for the women buyers.

Avon and Tarrant would have to brush up on their exercise regimes if they wanted to fetch top price on this planet.

"It wasn't the harnesses and the dress code," Dayna offered Soolin, a while later in their exploration of the market. They were drinking spiced alcoholic drinks at one of the canopy covered stalls that looked directly over the wares of... well, principally a long line of scantily-clad men. Dayna wasn't complaining about the view. "They were too afraid they couldn't compete."

"I'm sure Tarrant would try." Soolin rose to the bait, and Dayna grinned. She grinned more when Soolin added, "So how _does_ Tarrant compete?"

"Passably," Dayna said, catching herself subconsciously licking her lips. Then she pulled a face, because actually, she considered him her friend, and so didn't see why he couldn't have come down and pretended to be her kept breeding specimen, in case they needed additional support. Sure, there was a component of humiliation in the task, but everyone staying alive was more important. It was a mission, after all.

It wasn't as though there weren't things on Navaru that required some adjustments from the two of them. She'd had to disillusion several quite specific glances with a fierce correction of, " _I'm her bodyguard_ ," as she'd trailed around next to Soolin. ("I thought I was your bodyguard," Soolin had said dryly, and Dayna replied, "You're the one who's been here before." "...Well, they'll only conclude we're both available if they don't think we're together," Soolin had countered, and Dayna changed her reactions after that.)

"How do _you_ think they compare?" Dayna asked mischievously, jerking her head back toward the line of men. "Tarrant? _Avon_?"

She hadn't been sure before, but the distasteful shake of Soolin's head confirmed that she'd had relations with neither. "I'm done with men. I _barely_ tolerated Dorian, and we all know how _that_ ended."

"Bastard," Dayna supported genially. She toasted the sentiment of Soolin swearing off men with the last of her drink. "This is good. Let's get more."

They didn't find Asha through the course of the day, and as dusk was starting to gather, they opted to buy one of the thin tents the locals were using to camp in the terrain around the market. They picked up two bedrolls, bought food from one of the stands, sent a brisk communication to Scorpio about their plans, and settled in for the night.

They could have teleported back up to _Scorpio_ and returned in the morning, but truth to tell it was more relaxing to be _away_ from Avon's too-sharp attempts to enforce his command, Tarrant's posturing, and Vila's bemoaning the lack of recreational substances to poison himself with, just for a while.

The tent field was a strangely impressive sight, almost pretty in its own way, miles and miles of little greyish triangles ranged across the sand. with a scattering of visiting spaceships in the distance making an oddly discordant backdrop to the view.

They ate sitting on the sands outside beneath a glorious sunset, with rare hints of blue-green coiling in the orange from atmospheric gases. They drank more of the local cocktails, and some gut rot Soolin had purchased. Her verdict of, "I suppose we needed more cleaning product to scour the metal corrosion off the _Scorpio_ ," didn't seem to stop her from drinking it.

When they finally retreated into the tent, Soolin hung a small light powered by battery up at the top of the main supporting pole. It threw shadows everywhere, but allowed them some visibility. The night was warm close to the ground because of minerals in Navaru's sands that absorbed the daytime heat. Soolin stripped down to her underwear before the lay on her bedroll, pushing her clothes to a neat pile in one corner. Dayna rested her chin on her hands and lay on her front, watching not particularly self-consciously. It didn't matter, did it? They were both women.

When Dayna had first joined the crew of the _Liberator_ , limited in her experience of human contact, Cally had indulged her curiosity and they'd talked a lot. The day after the night they'd spent talking, Cally had visited Avon and Tarrant and displayed a certain violent streak in reprisal for _their_ indulging of Dayna's curiosity. It amused her even now, despite the sad associations that time had held. Her father's death, and her sister's - and now thinking about that story was associated with Cally's death, too.

"You know what everyone else in this field thinks we're going to get up to in here," she commented to Soolin with good humour, suddenly amused by the idea, actually thinking about what it might be like as she looked at Soolin's body, because she never had. She had come fresh out of her adolescence in exile and the wing of her protective father and made love with Avon and then Tarrant in swift succession - still fairly often with Tarrant when the need arose in both of them, although the idea of doing that with Avon was just vaguely funny now. The idea of experiencing the same act with a woman had never been presented as an option in her upbringing, and so she had never thought to do anything more than talk to Cally.

Soolin gave her a long, hard look and said, "You sound like you want to."

It was _almost_ a question. "I think I might," Dayna said, and began shrugging out of her clothes.

"It's not something you've done before?" Soolin asked, as if backtracking, with a shade more terseness.

"With women? I never even registered it as a possibility."

"-but with Tarrant, yes," Soolin caught up, with a snort as if there was a joke in there. "Won't he mind?"

"Why should _Tarrant_ mind?" Dayna asked, with some degree of entertainment at the concept.

"Okay." Soolin sounded amused, too. She wriggled out of her underwear, exposing soft, pink tips on the mounds of her breasts and the little blonde triangle between her thighs.

Dayna's underwear had gone with her clothes, all in one big ball she'd kicked to the base of her bed roll. She crawled the short distance across the tent and kissed Soolin, sliding her hands down the other woman's body, until her palms stroked soft thighs. Dayna curled her hands beneath Soolin's buttocks and held them through the kiss, pushing their lower bodies together. She was a little mystified as to what the process might be without the obvious Tab A/Slot B equation, which was a pretty uncomplicated equation. Well, she had her fingers, and even without using those, they had already found a pleasing friction.

"We work well together," Dayna said. "Tell me what to do next."

"Nothing. Let me..." Soolin slipped a hand down in between their bodies. Friction was good but the more specific contact was better.

Dayna wasn't a "nothing" sort of girl. She laughed and held her arm around Soolin's waist as she pulled them both down on the bedroll, careful not to dislodge Soolin's hand between her legs. She was intrigued by Soolin's breasts, running a compare and contrast on the behaviour of her nipples. Tasting them made her realise there were other obvious options than fingers, but for now she curled around the pleasure of Soolin's hand.

When Soolin's skilled hands reached a satisfactory point, Dayna slid away with a grunt and crawled down her body. She looked up, asking permission with her eyebrows, before easing apart Soolin's thighs. She pillowed her head there and, tentative at first, started to use her tongue.

Soolin gasped. "You _are_ a quick study."

"I _am_ a quick study," Dayna agreed. Somewhat muffled.

* * *

The morning arrived quickly, a little too hot on their combined bed rolls to spend a _very_ closely companionable night, but it was the most companionable Dayna remembered. There was always a little desperation involved in hooking up with Tarrant.

She watched Soolin's sleeping face, and smiled at the gradual realisation that there wasn't any real chance of Soolin not being awake and aware that she was watched so closely. Soolin was always tense and careful. This face, then, wasn't her truly relaxed one, only an approximation of it that Soolin was allowing Dayna to see.

Reluctantly, therefore, she pulled on enough clothing to be respectable - leggings and bra - and climbed out of the tent into the rising heat and light of the desert planet's day. Outside, she performed some morning exercises, stretching her muscles out, and gave Soolin her own privacy to wake up and prepare for the world.

Her bracelet chirped on her wrist as she was half-upside-down with most of her weight rested on that arm. She curled upright again to answer it. "It's 6AM, Avon."

"Not up here," he said. "Besides, we've spent the night evading Federation ships, and it was necessary to retreat to the far side of Navaru's moon. This is a warning not to require teleport in a hurry. Comm's range is slightly broader than teleport range. I'll let you know when it's safe for us to venture out."

Dayna shrugged. "Okay, thanks."

"We'll be putting Vila on watch as soon as we can wake him up. Be sure to check in frequently today to make sure he stays that way."

She frowned. "That makes it sound like he found some more soma. I... thought we were all out."

"Ah. Well, there's a story behind _that_." Oddly, Avon sounded like he was laughing inside, even if his tone was tired and disgusted. Avon wasn't normally a laughing-inside sort of man.

He cut the communication without explaining.

Soolin was more relaxed than the day before, which had already been as relaxed as Dayna had ever seen her. She emerged from the tent a short while later and they debated whether to pack up the gear and have to carry it with them, or whether simply to leave it where it was, chancing that no-one else would take it and they'd be able to find it again should they spend another night. Many others had evidently done just that.

They decided to leave it, and Dayna wove pieces of the crinkly packaging from their meal into a wind-catcher that she tied to the front rope of the tent, so it fluttered, glittering in the mild breeze. "Hopefully that will serve as a marker."

They returned to the central market and asked for Asha at the food and drink stands already open. It was sufficiently quiet in the morning lull that they could speak to the women running the stands far more easily than the day before, and upon the third repeat of their questions struck lucky.

"She has an electronics stall on the Northern edge of the market," the grey-haired, weathered woman said, cracking a grin missing a front tooth. "Specialises in salvaged technology, offworld technology, computers. If that's what you're looking for, my sister's better. More reliable. Closer, too."

"Sorry," Soolin said. "We have a deal prearranged with Asha."

They couldn't help but notice, as they slowly crossed the market, that the presence of the local police force seemed to be greater than the day before. It was slightly surreal to see so many exclusively _women_ of assorted shapes and sizes filling the uniforms dotted around, after Dayna's exposure to the Federation's male-dominated ranks.

They stopped to call up _Scorpio_ and report the change... and received the full story, from a tired and irritable but nonetheless still _amused_ sounding Tarrant, of what Vila had managed to accomplish the day before. The sotted fool had dressed in female clothing and had Orac teleport him planetside to acquire his poison of choice. He'd almost been left behind in a _very_ sticky situation when his request for immediate teleport coincided with a Federation ship flying close to the _Scorpio's_ orbit. "Avon's still trying to wake him," Tarrant said.

"Of all the menfolk, the only one brave enough to set foot on this planet..." Soolin intoned, loudly, and Tarrant cut the call with aggravation. She laughed and then looked around the police presence, shaking her head wonderingly. "No prizes for guessing what stirred them up, then. Look's like Vila's become Navaru's most wanted."

"He has a _gift_ for making friends," Dayna agreed.

They increased their own wariness again, though neither spoke of it. They had to allow for the possibility that the increased police manpower... womanpower... was due to something else.

Or that Vila had drawn attention to and sabotaged their mission in the process of his jaunt. When they found Asha's stand, a short woman with locks of brown hair to her shoulders and bright Navarian clothing was arguing animatedly, surrounded by four Navarian police women.

Dayna groaned. "It was too much to hope that this would be simple."

Soolin veered them across to the counter of a drinks stand next to Asha's, and quickly bought two drinks, allowing them to blend in and spy on the tussle taking place.

"What do you think?" she asked quietly. "Should we take our chance, intervene?"

" _If_ we had instant teleport, I'd say we could take them," Dayna said, feeling annoyed as it crept over her just what not having teleport available meant. This part of the market was quieter, forced out on a limb by the geography, corralled into a thin spar jutting off from the bulk of the stalls by the rocky terrain. There would be a delay before further police could reach them, but without being certain how long they'd have to evade pursuit before retrieval...

"Agreed," Soolin said. "We'll wait. Maybe they'll finish the interview and leave."

A few minutes later, they did indeed leave... but dragging Asha with them. Soolin cursed, and Dayna jerked her head and started walking toward the wares laid out in the sand. She heard Soolin following on her heels. But before they could reach the abandoned stall, a bunch of neighbouring stallholders had rushed over and begun scraping things up. Dayna and Soolin hung back and watched everything hastily deposited into Asha's caravan and locked away.

"We could approach them," Dayna said, indicating the woman and teenage helper who had taken the key. "See if they can make the exchange for her, since they have access to Asha's goods."

Such an approach got them nowhere - just frantically waved hands and shaken heads. They didn't want anything to do with Asha's business, didn't know what deals she had lined up, didn't want any dealings with anything that might be linked to Asha being picked up by the police.

"Can't really blame them," Soolin said, as they walked slowly away. She raised her communicator. " _Scorpio_? Asha has been picked up by the Navarian authorities." A familiar voice groaned, and Soolin injected a dangerous edge into her next question. " _Vila_ , how much did you let slip?"

"Nothing!" he responded plaintively. "Look, Soolin, all I wanted was a little drink..."

"If it had been _nothing_ , the police wouldn't be here!" Soolin retorted.

"I... might have mentioned her name, but really, I _didn't_ say anything about the crystal. It was just, you know, name dropping... a local contact, local colour, just trying to blend in... I _swear_ that I didn't-"

Dayna and Soolin looked at each other and Dayna said, "They didn't exactly haul her away in chains. Perhaps they're just trying to aggressively pursue the male who broke their laws, and that's the only reason they're questioning her."

"If so, since Asha _doesn't_ know Vila, they may well release her again soon," Soolin agreed.

"You see!" Vila crowed. "No harm done, eh, ladies...? I'd say this just gives you both more time to enjoy your vacation."

"We're _working_ , Vila," Dayna said.

"On a planet full of cheap drink, fine food and scantily clad male love slaves? I've been down there! I know exactly what you're doing. Working, my rear end!"

"Goodbye, Vila," Soolin said, and cut the communication. They both burst into muffled laughter a moment later.

"He's not _completely_ wrong," Dayna said.

"Navaru can keep its love slaves," Soolin said, and cast Dayna a significant look.

"Well, I don't mind staying. But do you suppose we should search Asha's caravan rather than wait? The data crystal could be in there, and we're leaving the _Scorpio_ badly exposed the longer we linger here."

"You know that wouldn't stop Vila."

"But we're not Vila." Dayna pulled a face at the comparison.

"We should search the caravan, then," Soolin agreed. "We'll have to come back after dark, though. The locals watch out for their neighbour stalls. But that does-" She lifted a corner of her mouth and both eyebrows. "It _does_ give us another sunset."

"Mm-hmm," mused Dayna. "So it does."

* * *

They spent the day keeping a watch on Asha's caravan just in case. Fortunately, there were enough food, drink and other entertainment stands relatively near to make it possible to be somewhat innocuous, though as a consequence neither of them was completely sober by the day's end. Their wariness was usually higher, but in the market's busy, female-dominated environment, they truly didn't feel _under threat_. Although neither of them could disguise their differing skin tone from the locals', the police weren't questioning or hassling off-worlders, so long as they were abiding by Navarian custom and law. They did have to play up public shows of affection between the two of them to discourage a different type of local interest, however.

"Kissing women in public," Dayna said, as they pulled apart, and looked around at the unremarkable reactions from the market crowds. "Is this something I can get away with anywhere else? I mean, normally?"

"Is that a proposition?" Soolin asked, a bit dryly. "Or are you intending to find more women to kiss?"

"I've never seen it," Dayna explained. "Although my experience of the galaxy is somewhat limited."

"Going from exile on a rock with your family and a few visiting tutors and angry natives, to the types of places that _Avon_ chooses to visit - usually to be chased off in short order by the Federation or more angry natives? I'll say that's limited."

"I never really had time to explore any cultures and their sexual practices... or familial bonding conventions." She frowned across at the rows of men on a nearby stall. "If we lived here, for example, we would be the joint heads of the family, and we would choose a male, or males, to keep as servitors and provide us with children." She frowned. "I wonder how they feel when they have sons?"

Soolin rolled her eyes. "Navaru is a _long_ way from a model system."

Dayna grimaced. "Okay. I don't want to settle here. It's a funny joke, when we're thinking about Avon and Tarrant in that get-up, but the reality would be pretty demeaning. Even if most of _these_ men don't seem too unhappy."

"Maybe that's worse," Soolin said. "That they don't know anything but acceptance of their oppression. On the other hand, this particular custom _has_ scared off the Federation's mostly-male troops from making inroads on this planet for generations, even though all the ones around it have fallen."

Dayna snorted a laugh. Her eyes followed some of the groupings walking past them around the market. An untethered slave holding the hand of a young boy in robes, from the similarity of their features clearly his son, walked behind two women with an entourage of four daughters and a further boy around them. "I suspect once you get down to the personal level, it's not so clear-cut as it seems on the surface."

"I don't really know how they work it," Soolin said, and she didn't voice it aloud, but Dayna could still tell from her eyes that she wasn't interested to learn further because she thought it was despicable.

Dayna shrugged. Freedom was important. But if Navaru hadn't functioned like this, the Federation would have taken the freedom of _all_ the population a long time ago.

"It's not unheard-of elsewhere, you know," Soolin said, after a pause. "On most planets, relationships are permitted between women and women, and men and men. It's only that public displays of affection tend to be much rarer, or any other displays which might publicly confirm such a relationship. But there are even some Federation planets where same sex pairings receive legal recognition."

"So it's all right?" Dayna asked. "If we wanted to do this again later, or keep doing this? It's not _just_ because we're on Navaru, and the rules are different here?"

"Well, now," Soolin purred, "All _that_ depends upon is the two of us. And even if it wasn't all right, we _are_ rebels, remember?"

Asha did not come back before the sun began to slip down the sky again. It was getting colder, and a wind was starting to pick up, so they ate at one of the food stands, around a communal fire fuelled by compressed waste blocks that put an odd, not entirely pleasant smell into the air, before returning to try and find their tent. Dayna's wind-catcher was flapping like a wild thing in the breeze, flaring with metallic reflections of the red and gold sunset.

They crawled into the tent and did not turn the light on. They must have given quite a shadow show last night, Dayna realised. But there was enough hazy orange light seeping in, filtered by the fabric, that perhaps they still were still doing so now.

"Sooner or later," Soolin observed as they moved in close, "We are going to have to return to the _Scorpio_ to at least wash."

Water was a commodity on Navaru.

Dayna laughed. "Are you saying I stink?"

"I'm saying _we_ stink," Soolin corrected.

"It's not so bad." Water had not been a commodity on her lonely homeworld, but she had not been raised to be as finicky about cleanliness as the spacers who she'd mostly interacted with since leaving it. "And we're both in the same boat."

"I suppose so," Soolin said after a pause. "I've been living in artificial environments too long. I didn't grow up that way."

That was surprising news to Dayna, who offered in exchange, "We had a base underground. It was _very_ claustrophobic. Father spent much of his life in there, once we were in exile, but I would have suffocated to stay in there all the time. He didn't like me to go outside, but he allowed it. He let me take the risk, to be my own person." Her playmates had been the hostile natives. Hide and seek with a deadly edge.

Soolin offered no more clues as to how _she_ had grown up, reaching for the fastenings of Dayna's clothing instead. "I don't think we'll have any trouble occupying themselves in _this_ little space for the hours it took for darkness to fall."

* * *

They crept back through the field of tents, grey shapes in the moonlight. A few of them were still lit up internally, casting shadows which interacted in various ways, some of them intimate. Occasional shadows also moved around outside, most of them headed to and from the curtained-off toilet pits dotted around, but it was impossible to pick out features, and none of them spoke to one another. It was an anonymous field of strangers, and yet oddly companionable at the same time.

They'd had to come out some distance to find a place to pitch their tent, and it was a walk back to the market. When they got there, it was to find it guarded. Patrols led some kind of creature around the otherwise uninhabited aisles, protecting the sellers' wares.

"Damn," Soolin said quietly. "I expected the guards, but not the... dogs?"

"Those are _not_ dogs," Dayna said, squinting at the squat, spiky shapes with their moonlight-reflecting teeth. "But they must _scent_ like dogs, if they're used like this. Let's give them a bad smell to focus on." She slid her bag from her shoulder, in which she'd packed some of her smaller, more stable, portable creations, and felt quietly inside it. She hoped she'd brought the stink bombs she'd made as a result of her and Tarrant japing around. They were tiny, and even though she couldn't have predicted their purpose here, it turned out she had.

"I've got three," she said to Soolin. "If we seed them throughout this side of the market, they won't know exactly where we're aiming toward, and the creatures aren't going to be able to focus on anything except for the stench."

They split up to set the first two stink bombs off simultaneously, and then carried on around to meet again at their destination, where Dayna set off the third in the centre of the road.

"You know you said the _dogs_ won't be able to think about anything but the stench...?" Soolin choked as they sprinted across to Asha's abandoned caravan.

Dayna winced even as she laughed.

Despite trying to get the door open and closed again quickly, the smell got inside with them anyway. "It's potent, but we've at most half an hour before it dissipates. We need to hurry."

In the dark, not able to risk much more light than tiny torches they cupped in their hands, it wasn't easy to work fast. Data crystals were pretty distinct items, though, from the electronic and metal parts most of the caravan was filled with. By the end of their allotted time, they could be fairly sure that the crystal wasn't in the caravan.

They left unsuccessful, creeping past the confused guards and their agitated animals. The guards' complaints about the obvious problems with the sanitary facilities floated to their ears.

"That was a waste of time," Soolin said, taking in great gulps of the far more pleasant air around the tent field and hugging her arms around herself against the increasing cold. "We should have stolen some blankets from Asha. It looks like we're going to have to huddle close for warmth, tonight."

In actual fact, once they were lying down inside their tent, the warmth from the sand filtered through almost enough to compensate for the brisk wind... but they huddled together on principle, all the same.

* * *

Dayna woke up to some sand burrowing animal's confusion at encountering the ground sheet of their tent, and she sat up with a yelp at the sensation of squirming under her thigh. Soolin rolled over, blinking curiously, and laughed at her, pointing to the bulge beneath the fabric. "Our friendly Mister Sand Mole doesn't know _what_ we are."

"As long as that's not some kind of scorpion under there," Dayna said with a shudder. She tapped the ground sheet near the moving lump with the end of her gun.

"Leave it alone," Soolin groaned.

"I don't want it tearing its way _inside_ the tent with us. Haven't you noticed that almost everything living around here has spikes?"

Whatever it was, it left, not appreciating the tapping.

They hadn't taken any clothing off last night bar their footwear, piled together by the tent flap. It was late enough to be full light and they were aware of other peoples' movement in the tent field around them. The heat of Navaru's days had returned somewhat with the sun, but it was still much cooler than the two previous days, and the wind was dragging fiercely at the sides of their tent. The flapping tails of Dayna's wind catcher outside were slapping together loudly, almost sounding like percussion gunshots.

"I see no particular reason to venture out there yet," Soolin commented. She sat and fixed her hair, which was in more disarray than Dayna had ever seen it, while Dayna sat cross-legged and hit the comm to call up _Scorpio_. Tarrant answered.

"What _is_ happening down there? Are you under heavy fire?" He sounded baffled by the cheerful, unworried nature of her greeting.

"What-? Oh, that's just the wind blowing things about. The weather down here is taking a stormy turn. Does Avon have any more suggestions how to proceed next? We checked Asha's belongings last night, but the data crystal wasn't there."

" _We_ -" Tarrant's emphasis on the word bristled at the assumption that Avon was in command "-want you back up here if Asha doesn't show today. We're going to try set up another orbit close enough for the teleport. Most of the traffic seems to have quieted. We think it might have been coming to Navaru's market, too, so be careful. The Federation could be there."

"Well, I haven't seen them," Dayna said. She supposed there were female Federation operatives.

"Well, be careful, anyway. I can just imagine Servalan down there, surrounded by her guards all wearing those _things_ Vila described." His distaste was palpable... even more for the outfit than Servalan.

"Servalan would fit right in here," Dayna agreed sourly. "But she's usually more visible. You know how she loves to make a splash. We've been here two days. If she was here, I'd _know_." She made an effort to lighten her mood. "You'd be in demand here, too, Tarrant."

"No. Thank you," he returned. "Twelve hours, Dayna. No more. I think you've both had plenty of time to indulge in the local ambience. We'll be in teleport range by then."

Dayna cut the communication off without response, raising her eyebrows at Soolin about the high-handed orders.

"Obviously they don't realise that we _are_ the superior sex," Soolin said.

They reluctantly picked up their gear from inside the tent and ventured out into the wind. Dust whipped around them instantly, the air uncomfortably gritty in their mouths. Many of the locals around them had scarves drawn up against that problem.

"I think I'm seeing the reason for all the head and neck wear despite the heat, now," Dayna complained, holding her sleeve over her mouth.

"It's certainly less comfortable than previous days." Soolin regarded the tent, with its noisily flapping decoration. "Should we pack it up and take it with us, today? We probably won't get to come back. Also, I think if we leave it, and this gets much worse, it might not _be_ here if we need to come back."

"Or we won't be able to find it." Dayna pointed to the way the sand was banking against the side. Then she shrugged. "But other people have left theirs, and _they_ should know it's safe... I guess it depends whether we want to keep it."

"It could come in useful on another excursion," Soolin said, "and we spent good credit on it."

So they flattened and rolled up the tent, almost losing it in the process as the wind caught it up with a great tug, and only both women hanging on tightly kept it from flying away. The wind catcher and bedding were caught up inside the roll, but they tied the tent ropes around the whole thing, and Dayna fashioned one into a strap so she could sling it over her back. She already had a bag and Soolin didn't, but it seemed wisest to keep their fastest gun hand completely unburdened. "Besides," Dayna added, "I'm the bodyguard."

"I don't think anyone even bought that the first time you said it," Soolin told her.

Packed up, they made the trek back to the vicinity of Asha's caravan, feeling dusty and begrimed, and by now even Dayna would admit that the use of _Scorpio's_ or, better, the base's sanitary facilities, would be much appreciated.

It was considerably less comfortable to linger around in the market. There were large, full tents set up now, having appeared where only flimsy sun-shading canopies had been on previous days. There must be a knack to putting such things up quickly in high wind that the locals had mastered, Dayna figured. She and Soolin could not, however, retreat into the comfort of those tents. They had to watch for Asha.

They did buy some shawls like those the locals wore, odd as it looked to wear them over their own outfits, but the shawls at least kept the sand out of their mouths.

Most of the big tents belonged to the eateries, protection against sandy food, so their choices for where to keep watch were restricted to one shabby little stand that was barely clinging to the ground with its sun canopy still raised.

Asha returned around midday, her steps heavy with irritation and her expression stormy.

"She doesn't look very approachable," Dayna said. "I think we should give her an hour or so to calm down."

Soolin nodded reluctantly. "Also, she may have been released simply to monitor who approaches her. We should linger and see if we can spot anyone else watching, waiting for a bite."

"If they've planted a bug on her, we won't be able to tell," Dayna pointed out.

"Orac might..." But the _Scorpio_ was still out of teleport range. They'd have to wait hours. Eventually, sitting watching the caravan that they _knew_ the woman was inside that they needed to speak to, who they'd been waiting for three days, began to wear. Soolin fingered her gun and said, "I'm tired of this. We're not Vila. We haven't broken any laws here. Coming from the same ship as an idiot isn't a crime. Let's just make our approach."

Dayna said, "At _last_ ," and they strode toward the caravan. Soolin knocked on the door. "Excuse me. Asha?"

" _Go away_." The angry voice from within confirmed Dayna had been right first time about her unapproachability, but moreover than the hour or so waiting hadn't improved matters.

" _Excuse me_ , but we have some _business_ ," Soolin said, harder. "A prearranged deal. We're here as representatives of Avon." She pulled a face, which Dayna mirrored back at her, at voicing that line.

The door burst open. Soolin's gun was out in an instant at the sudden, angry ferocity of the move, but then she quickly lowered it upon seeing the woman in the doorway wasn't armed. Dayna had only got so far as to rest a hand on hers.

"You know I don't have what you want!" Asha yelled. "You already came in and took it! I'm not _stupid_. I'm not going to let you blame me for reneging on the deal, either, not after spending the night in a cell because of you people!"

"Fair point," Dayna said, "but we didn't take-"

Asha's indrawn breath alerted them. Two - _three_ ; Dayna saw them melting out of the crowd, guns in hand. She dived one way, shoving Asha backwards into the caravan with a hard push that knocked her down. Soolin went the other way, already shooting. Her first shot hit one of the armed women, but then she was forced to take cover behind the side of the caravan as the remaining two enemy returned fire. Dayna, on the ground, rolled beneath the caravan and tried to provide cover to allow Soolin to dispatch the enemy from her better position. Trying not to hit any of the bystanders complicated things, but most of those were clearing out pretty fast.

Dayna took a scrape to her arm from a bolt that ricocheted off the corner of the caravan, but then managed to hit one of their attackers, and quickly after, Soolin's gun took down the distracted third.

"Asha?" Dayna called, venturing to stick her head out from beneath the caravan. "Are you still alive?" No response. "Soolin, are you hit?"

"I'm fine. Just wait a moment." They held several more seconds, but no more gun-toting women materialised.

"I'm coming out," Dayna said. There was something _scuttling_ underneath the caravan with her and she definitely didn't want to meet one of those spikey scorpions while she was flat on her belly with her face in the sand. "Asha...?" She scrambled around to the caravan door, while Soolin stepped back out into view with her gun still levelled.

Asha was not hit, merely screwed up into a huddle and even more emphatically full of curses for them to get away from her and out of her life. And at this juncture, Dayna really _couldn't_ say she didn't have a point.

"We just _saved_ your life!" Soolin yelled back from where she was hauling one of the bodies over. "And we've got your custom written Avon code."

"Doesn't matter," Asha hissed belligerently. "I don't have the crystal. Like I told you. Maybe you've got it. Maybe they took it. I don't care!"

Dayna shook her head and walked over to join Soolin, who was searching the dead woman. Halfway there, one of the other women they'd shot moved and Dayna changed her course, gun raised warningly. "Don't bother to get up," she advised.

"These are Federation issue," Soolin called across, letting gun clips and ration pills fall through her fingers.

"What did you do with the data crystal?" Dayna demanded, pointing her gun at the injured woman's forehead.

" _We don't have it_ ," the trooper spat. She was dressed like a native, and her skin looked almost the same shade as theirs, but her wrist bore Federation military tattoos.

A thorough search proved that they certainly didn't have it _on_ them. Not the dead one, nor the live one, nor the other.

Soolin came back from checking the third with a sigh. " _If_ you tell us where we can find the data crystal," she said to the trooper still mobile and conscious, "we'll help get your compatriot to medical treatment. She'll make it if we're fast."

The trooper's eyes went wide and wild, but she still said, furiously, "We don't have it!"

Dayna believed her. "Come on, let's drop them at medical anyway. The Navarians will only sulk at us if we litter."

Soolin's eyes narrowed upon the trooper. "All right, we'll be generous. But you'll have to help Dayna carry your friend. _I'm_ not taking my sights off of you."

Dayna ran back to grab the tent roll and her bag while the trooper was rising painfully but determinedly to her feet. She was forced to dodge a hail of damaged electronics that Asha started to hurl her way as soon as she came in range. "Oh, leave it _out_!" she yelled back at the angry woman. "We're _going_ , all right?"

* * *

"So it's a bust," Dayna said glumly, as they sat inside a food tent, which she suspected might be a more expanded version of a stall they'd already frequented earlier in their exploration of the market, though it was hard to tell. The market was big.

They'd taken the Federation women to a medical tent, where they'd all faced questioning from the police and market security and a reprimand for entering into private disputes on Navarian soil. But since they were off-worlders and so was the corpse, and Asha, the citizen who was complaining the loudest, was out of favour with the police, they seemed to have got away with the disruption. They had, of course, denied all knowledge of or acquaintance with Vila.

"It doesn't seem like we're going to be in luck," Soolin agreed. She rolled around the crisp-coated delicacies on her plate with her fingertips. They were soft inside, filled with some kind of cheese. Dayna's had lasted considerably less time and she eyed Soolin's hungrily.

"Do you really think the Federation hadn't taken it?" Dayna asked with a sigh.

Soolin blinked at her. "I was trusting _your_ instincts on that."

"No... Her reaction felt real." Dayna shook her head. "It doesn't help us."

One of the stallholders wandering out of the back looked familiar. The older woman evidently recognised them, too, for she came over, eyes narrowing curiously, then cannily. "You're the girls who were looking for computer tech... I told you you'd have no luck with Asha. My sister, though. Better than Asha. Better deals, more skill. Less trouble. Sure she'll have what you want."

"I told you, _unfortunately_ we had a deal with Asha for a very specific piece of merchandise," Soolin said, a bit crisply.

"I'm _sure_ ," the old woman said, with a wicked mischief in her gap-toothed grin, "that my sister, she'll have what you want."

Dayna stared at her. Soolin narrowed her eyes and stroked her fingers over her gun.

"How would you...?" Dayna choked with incredulity as she grasped it. "Okay, old woman. Why don't you tell us... _Where_ can we find your sister?"

* * *

"One data crystal." Soolin set it down with a sharp rap on the console in front of Avon. "Fortunately, Leksandrin was willing to make the same deal. Turns out she heard the police were going to pick Asha up and put herself right there on hand to steal the choice pieces of her merchandise. And I was just working up to being impressed how people down there looked out for each other."

"I don't care about market traders' squabbles," Avon said, snatching up the crystal and examining it for damage.

"She beat us _and_ the Federation to it," Dayna reminded him. But Avon was marching across to Orac with the crystal in his fist, and she very much imagined that was the last they were going to get out of Avon for at least the rest of the journey back - on anything but schematics and schemes, anyway.

"You two look a bit the worse for wear," Tarrant commented. " _And_ you both-" He wrinkled his nose as he spoke, but at Dayna's fierce look, visibly thought better of finishing that sentence. "What's that?" He waved his hand at the tent as Dayna put it down next to her bag. There were two bundles on the side of a console, and she felt a grateful pang as she realised one of the men had been thoughtful enough to ready a change of clothes. She picked them up.

"Something we thought might come in useful again," Soolin answered Tarrant.

"Did you bring back any more soma?" Vila asked, eagerly.

"No, Vila," Dayna said.

"Still, at least _you_ enjoyed your time down there. I've never wished I was a woman so much." Vila sighed, and hunched, begrudging everything.

"The way Tarrant tells it, you did a fetching impersonation," Soolin said.

"I didn't say 'fetching'," Tarrant objected quickly, and changed the subject. "When will we ever need a tent?"

"We could go camping outside Xenon Base," Dayna mused. "Go hunting Hommicks. Sounds like good sport to me."

"That's an oddly topical suggestion," Soolin said, obviously thinking about the winners of the gender war on the planet they'd just left.

"You two seem... cheerful. For three days surveillance grunt-duty on a sandpit with no sanitation." And Tarrant was looking suspicious and affronted by the idea. He looked to Dayna, his usual ally, for help. "What did you get up to down there... Hey, is Vila _right_?"

Dayna opened her mouth but before she could respond, Vila said, " _Rows_ of over-muscled himbos wearing, well, basically nothing. But they wore it well. Drinks..." He sobbed slightly, pathetically. "Drink _everywhere_."

...Of course, _that_ would be what they were thinking. Dayna rolled her eyes. "Yes, Tarrant. We did _everything_ you're imagining. Just... keep imagining." And she picked up Soolin's hand in hers, very much making a show of it. _Almost_ as much show as Soolin made, responding to the gesture by running her hand down Dayna's neck and over her shoulder and arm warmly, with unmistakable affection.

Tarrant spluttered. Vila's jaw had hit the floor. "...Never, _never_ wanted to be a woman so much. Damn it. _You could at least have brought me the booze!_ "

"You had your booze, Vila," Dayna reminded him. "Now, we're going to get freshened up."

Avon raised his head quizzically from his data crystal when Dayna and Soolin shuffled past him on their way to the facilities. Which resembled a cupboard off the flight deck, but made for the only privacy and sanitation that _Scorpio_ had during flight under ordinary circumstances. "Something happened down there?" Avon asked sharply. But his eyes zeroed in on their joined hands and he very quickly lost interest.

They piled inside and shut the door. "Avon's never any fun," Dayna commented. "...Well, only that one time. I think he had a head injury." She grimaced and tried to shuffle, ended up sitting inside the switched-off molecular cleanser while Soolin straddled her legs either side of the sanitary facilities. "Not much space in here for two of us to manoeuvre."

"Mm. We'll probably have to help each other." Soolin set her hands to the fastenings of Dayna's clothes.

" _How fresh are you two getting in there?!"_ Vila called through the door.

Dayna groaned and grit under her breath to Soolin, "You'll just have to believe me when I say I'm _really_ missing the _Liberator_ right now."

"Ignore him." Soolin's lips were soft, and her breath hot against Dayna's cheek. "After all, we've been places _less_ private."

END


End file.
